The
Creative Edge
In our
book’s chapter on
Fours we wrote “You’ll
establish more rapport when you witness their pain, show your
empathy, honor their unique way of seeing things, and focus your
questions on how they feel.” We also suggested “Twos
respond better to
feelback
than to
feedback.”
Nonetheless, when concrete results aren’t obvious while coaching
someone with heightened emotions, I sometimes wonder if I’ve
been helpful by simply listening deeply, even when clients
assure me it was helpful. Some people don't know how much
more is possible.
I've often used
Focusing
as a way to
help clients move through their kinesthetic experience of
emotional pain and into imagery that has the potential to heal
symbolically. So I’m
especially pleased to learn more about Dr. Kathy McGuire's
Creative Edge Focusing.
Dr. Mcguire completed her doctoral dissertation mentored by
Eugene Gendlin, creator of
Focusing,
and uses the term
Intuitive
Focusing
for her
application of Gendlin’s approach (where the client is
encouraged to focus on “the ’felt sense,’ the murky, unclear,
intuitively or bodily-sensed ‘feel’ of ‘the whole issue’” and
then to move through body sensations to a “felt shift”).
Among the
many free articles at the
Creative
Edge Focusing web site, those on grieving have been
especially helpful to me with clients who are experiencing strong feelings. In “Active Grieving” Dr.
McGuire writes, “Your body knows how to grieve and will direct
the process to a healing conclusion,
if
you can
stop suppressing it.” In her “Five Minute Grieving” process, she
suggests:
-
Invite the client to
cry ("...let's make room for your tears..."),
-
Empathize without
trying to "fix" or take away the grief ("It seems bleak
right now..."),
-
Help the client find
words or images for the tears ("It helps to get a handle on
the feeling..."),
-
Empathize again, often
by paraphrasing the client's words ("So it's your fear
you'll never be a parent and that's hard...").
Continue steps (1)
through (4) as long as makes sense, then establish closure
and orient the client, if necessary, by doing a “present
time” exercise (“You’re welcome to sit here for a minute...
let’s make sure you’re back in the world…”), or you may want
to continue with other aspects of the session (“Let’s see if
we can look for solutions to your situation...”).
I’m also
intrigued with McGuire's
Focused
Listening,
which combines Gendlin’s
Focusing
with Carl Roger’s
Reflective
Listening:
-
Pure Reflection
of the client's words, gestures, and metaphorical responses.
"So there's an image... two triangles intersecting, red and
white intertwining..."
-
Asking for More
"Can you say more about 'the pressure'... exactly what is
that like?"
-
Focusing Invitation
"Would it be okay to 'sit' at the edge of that anger for a
moment and see what comes?"
-
Personal Sharing
Sometimes you may have a strong intuition, to be offered
only if the client gives the go-ahead and only to return
immediately to pure reflection.
After
summarizing "The Focusing Attitude" as one of empathy, respect,
and non-judgmental acceptance, Dr. McGuire shares the metaphor
of “Caring, Feeling Presence” used by Fathers Pete Campbell and
Ed McMahon, creators of Bio-Spiritual Focusing:
Imagine you have found an abandoned infant on the steps of
your hospital. Imagine how you would, through your bodily
attention, convey complete acceptance and love and safety to
this infant: “You are totally wanted in this world and safe
with me.” Now, turn this same kind of loving attention
toward your inner experiencing.
I’m convinced
the creative edge of change involves working with metaphors
and—lovingly and with trust in our clients’ innate healing
capacity—following the trail through kinesthetic, auditory, and
visual imagery to those metaphors.
